By Eric Christine As topsoil degradation and climate change threaten ecological habitats across the US and the world, transitioning toward sustainable farming practices is key to reducing the environmental impact of the global food system. The Northeastern US currently ranks among the top regions in terms of adoption and current implementation of land use […]
By Jonathan M. Harris The year 2023 was the hottest year in recorded history, and 2024 is on track to be even hotter. Record high temperatures have been observed on land, in the oceans and in Antarctica. Global concentrations of major greenhouse gases climbed to their highest levels ever. Huge losses of ice were recorded […]
By Brian Roach, Anne-Marie Codur and Jonathan M. Harris This teaching module, based on Chapter 20 of Harris and Roach’s textbook, Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach, discusses theories and policies to promote sustainable water management. It presents current data on global water demand and scarcity, and introduces the concepts of virtual water […]
By Anne-Marie Codur, Jonathan M. Harris and Kayleigh Fay There is increasing evidence that ambitious goals to mitigate climate change, such as those set for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cannot be met without a substantial contribution from increased absorption of carbon dioxide by soils, forests and wetlands. This module focuses on the agricultural […]
The world is experiencing unprecedented environmental and economic challenges posed by climate change. The need to reduce carbon emissions by identifying and executing effective technologies for mitigating carbon emissions is critical. One such technology is carbon dioxide removal. In a new journal article published in PLOS Climate, June Sekera and coauthors examine two contrasting approaches […]
By Kaylee Wei With the goal of identifying global solutions to the unprecedented environmental and economic challenges that the world faces due to climate change, the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) is currently underway in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. As countries negotiate the outcomes of the conference, carbon capture and storage (CCS), a […]
By Tim Thornton In recent decades, addressing climate change has gained increased attention as climate disasters have become more widespread. However, the international community is not currently on a sufficiently ambitious carbon emissions reduction trajectory to avoid non-catastrophic global warming. As illustrated in Figure 1, there is a large gap between global emissions with current […]
by Jonathan M. Harris, Brian Roach and Anne-Marie Codur This module, based on Chapters 12 and 13 of Harris and Roach’s textbook, Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach, discusses the scientific evidence on climate change, including recent data and projections on emissions, temperature and sea-level rise. It then evaluates the strengths and weaknesses […]
By Ellie Hu Climate change has already had an observable and adverse impact on the global environment, with rising sea levels, increased incidence of droughts, storms and wildfires, and declining water supplies and agricultural production. These impacts have fallen heavily on groups that face greater vulnerabilities from natural disasters. Among the groups most affected are […]
By Anne-Marie Codur and Jonathan Harris The latest stage in global efforts to respond to climate change was the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Glasgow in November 2021. The conference brought together delegations from 197 countries with the goal of achieving major progress […]